Stags Butting Antlers
by Inusagi
Summary: The boys of Torchwood have a bit of a pissing contests. Day 13 of the TW-July one shot challenge. Oneshot. Complete. T for safety


Disclaimer: Torchwood isn't mine. I do have some nice toast, though, if you'd like some.

*.*.*

Tosh and I giggled into our cocktails and searched the crowd for our boys. It was silly, really. A typically male pissing contest. "Like stags butting antlers" is how Ianto described it, before he'd gotten roped in by Jack.

It had all started because Owen couldn't keep his mouth shut, as usual. We—Jack, Owen and me, I mean—had gone to a scene where an alien had _literally_ exploded in a petrol station. It was a proper mess. Disgusting, really. But while Owen and me were scrubbing the goo from bottles of Coca-cola, Jack had been flirting with the girl behind the counter.

Owen, typically, had started moaning about it.

"Can I help it if they're drawn to my natural charisma?" Jack had said and, while he had a point, it didn't help Owen's temper any.

It was a haphazard descent into madness from there. Owen claimed that our Captain could never pick up "birds" with other blokes around to compete with and Jack said, rather nastily in my opinion, that Owen wouldn't be able to pull without that alien cologne he'd lifted from the Hub.

By the time we'd gotten back to the Hub, they had challenged each other. By the time Ianto had come round with his glorious coffee, there were rules and poor Ianto was forced to participate.

The competition was simple enough. We'd all go down to a club and the men of Torchwood would disperse. Whoever brought the most phone numbers back to me and Tosh won a month freed from whatever unsavory task they wanted. Jack wanted out of the paperwork, Owen the post-autopsy clean up and Ianto decided on mucking out the Weevil cells.

They couldn't help bickering over the rules, though. Owen demanded that they have to go to a _straight_ bar, wearing only what they had on for work. (Thank god we ladies were allowed to change—I had that awful blue goo on my jeans!) Jack forbade the use of alien tech and proclaimed that they couldn't chat up a girl they'd seen another of them talking to. Ianto, as always, had more of a mind for the details. There'd be no telling anyone about the contest in an effort to drum up sympathy, nor writing random numbers down on napkins themselves. We'd get out the red-light/green-light lie detector later, if anyone wanted to challenge it.

Then Jack and Owen had gone off to primp and preen like teenage girls, Ianto was talking to Tosh over a beat up-looking mobile. Which left me with the exploding alien report. Lovely.

We'd been at the club now since just after nightfall. Jack seemed to be doing well, always talking to one girl or another—weirdly, usually blondes. He'd stationed himself by the loos. Owen hadn't moved from the bar, where he must have spent two hundred quid already on women's drinks.

I had twenty quid down on Owen, who at least looked like he fit into the club scene. Tosh reckoned it'd be Jack, because ladies would ignore the horrendously out-of-date clothes in favor of the American accent. I hadn't even _seen_ Ianto in hours. I felt sort of sorry for him, being dragged into Jack and Owen's bullocks the way he was. It wasn't that Ianto wasn't adorable. He was, in his own innocent way, but he really was just so quiet. There'd be no way he could thrive in an environment like this with his shyness and properly pressed suits.

I said as much to Tosh, but she pointed over to the far wall. "He looks like he's doing alright, though."

I followed her point and was shocked. It was Ianto, standing against the wall. There was one girl—a _very_ pretty girl, at that—chatting to him, but he was puttering away with his phone and only smiling up at her here and there. But how he _looked_ shocked me.

At some point, he'd ditched his jacket and tie. His deep purple shirt was untucked and slightly wrinkled—Ianto Jones, in a _wrinkled_ shirt? There'd be pod people, next—and unbuttoned slightly. And was that a necklace, of all things?

The DJ announced last call while I was still gaping at Ianto. Owen slapped a palmful of paper napkins into Tosh's outstretched hand.

"Seven!" he proclaimed. "Let's see that tosser Harkness beat that!"

Jack strode up moments later and fished some of his business cards from the pockets of his greatcoat. They all had numbers scrawled on them. Two had lipstick as well.

"Seven," He smiled and our medic swore. "Where's Ianto?"

"Right here." Ianto swiped the scotch Jack had just ordered with a wink. "How did you two make out?"

"Seven apiece," Tosh answered for them. "We'll have to do a tie breaker!"

"Wait a minute," Jack said, trying to wave the bartender back over for a fresh drink. "We're missing a contestant."

I had the urge to slap Jack again. It wasn't particularly sporting to pick on the younger man. Poor Ianto.

Tosh looked sheepish, though. "Oh, I'm sorry, Ianto. How many numbers did you get?"

"Thirteen." He pulled out his phone and passed it to her.

Owen looked irritated. "Bullocks you did, tea boy. You probably had all those numbers to begin with."

"No," defended Tosh. "It's one of our dummy mobiles, for undercover work. It was empty when we got here, I checked myself."

I was floored and Tosh was laughing. Owen was muttering about the lie detector. Jack, who I'd have thought would be put out and pouting like a child, was beaming. He pulled Ianto to him by the shirt, before pressing him against the bar.

"Congrats on your stunning victory, Tiger Pants," he said.

Then he snogged Ianto senseless.

*.*.*

A/N: The word du jour is "Victory." This was an experiment-y piece, because I've never written from Gwen's POV. I like her, I'm not a Gwen-basher, but I'm not sure I like using her as a mouthpiece. I don't think I got her "voice" right. Hmmm…Anyway! Thanks for reading!


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